


Second Chance

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Good Parent Han Solo, Han Solo Lives, Kylo Ren Redemption, Multi, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Han Solo manages to save his son.
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Leia Organa/Han Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LieselSolo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieselSolo/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: For LieselSolo. Sorry it took so long!

“I’m being torn apart.” The way Kylo Ren — Ben Solo — felt...it was almost like his heart was breaking. “I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?”  
  
“Yes,” Han said. “Anything.”  
  
Kylo didn’t miss the look in his father’s eyes, the look of utter love and belief there. He didn’t deserve that. He knew that much. But Han was there, and he loved him just the same. After everything he’d done.   
  
Would Han Solo still love him if he knew *everything* he’d done?  
  
The choice was upon him. He knew that Snoke wanted him to make it. To sacrifice his own father. The trial on Dagobah had just been a preview of what was to come.   
  
He had tricked Snoke once. Paid for it. Snoke had found out before Poe’s interrogation, hurt him for it.  
  
“Kid,” Han said, “Your Aunt Qi’ra came back from the Dark Side, after Maul. No one’s ever really beyond redemption.”  
  
“You don’t know what I’ve done.”  
  
“I have a good idea.” Then, “Kid...you can come back. It won’t be an easy road to the Light, but I can help you. Your mother and I believe in you.”  
  
“Snoke said — ”  
  
“Whatever he said, he lied,” Han said.   
  
Silence.   
  
“How do you know that joining the Resistance is the right thing to do?”  
  
“Are you happy here, with the First Order?”  
  
“No.” Kylo was already surprised to hear himself saying that.   
  
“Maybe we won’t fight in the Resistance. Maybe we can just go off somewhere together. With Poe. With the others. Fighting crime.” A beat. “Like it should be."  
  
A third path? Was that possible? Snoke was practically tearing at his mind, howling at Kylo to do the deed, finish the job.   
  
He couldn’t do it, though.   
  
He wouldn’t.  
  
He let his helmet fall from his hands. After a while, he tossed the lightsaber into the abyss of Starkiller Base.   
  
“Huh,” Han said. “Thought an elegant weapon for a more civilized age would get more respect than that.”  
  
“It wasn’t well-made anyway,” Kylo said.   
  
Han hugged him, and for a moment, Kylo could have sworn he was home.   
  
***  
  
The walk back to the Falcon was, to say the least, spectacularly awkward. Han could already feel Finn and Rey’s confusion; it didn’t really take a Force Sensitive to know that they were confused and hurt beyond belief that he had taken Ben back. Like they were both unimportant somehow.   
  
Beside him, Ben was quiet as well. Han didn’t know what he expected from a father-son reunion. It definitely wasn’t this. That deep-seated awkward silence that suggested that there were some wounds that were yet to be healed.  
  
“Poe won’t want to see me,” Ben said. “Neither will Mom.”  
  
“They both will.” Why wouldn’t they, Han thought. Poe would be over the moons to see his childhood best friend and the love of his life back. Leia would be ecstatic just to see her son.   
  
What was so horrible that Ben thought they wouldn’t want to see him again?  
  
//Don’t be blind, Solo,// a part of him thought. //He’s committed war crimes.//  
  
Han knew that. He wasn’t oblivious — even if there were parts of him that were blinded by love for Ben. But it wasn’t just easy to assume that he was just going to abandon Ben. To find someone “better". It didn’t work that way with kids. Han occasionally watched the Holonet, saw people defending their kids with their every breath even when said kids had done the unthinkable.   
  
He couldn’t say he got it until now.   
  
“They don’t know what I’ve done,” Ben said. The underlying subtext being that they wouldn’t love him if they did.   
  
“Your mother knows,” Han said. “She still sent me.”  
  
Ben paused in the snow. “That’s...what you meant by ‘we’?”  
  
Ahead of them, Finn and Rey paused too. They obviously didn’t see that coming. Stang, Han thought, there should have been a better way to tell them. In fact, they should have met his son in a better context than this.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Snoke said she’d forgotten me...”  
  
“Then he lied.” The old, hot familiar anger threatened to claw its way out, and Han promised himself that Snoke would pay dearly for everything he did to Ben.   
  
“I don’t know.”   
  
How could Snoke have done something like that to Ben?  
  
“I’m here, ain’t I?” Han said. “I came to get you.”  
  
“You did."  
  
Ben stiffened, as did Han even as a rumble echoed up...through the ground? Stars knew where it was coming from.   
  
“That’s our cue to run,” Ben said. “The planet’s collapsing. Your explosives and whatever Poe did...well, they did the trick.”  
  
"Running’s a good idea.”  
  
They ran. Towards the Falcon, up the loading ramp. Rey took the co-pilot’s seat, Han the pilot’s seat; Han didn’t miss the look of confusion on Ben’s face, or the way he and Finn scooted uncomfortably away from each other.   
  
“Let’s get out of here.” Han said.   
  
Shooting into hyperspace — Han doubted he was more glad to go back home.


End file.
